


Prelude & Possibility

by goodwolf_badmoon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders Needs a Hug, Angst, Dragon Age II Spoilers, M/M, Regrets, late night dread, the moodiest mage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 10:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17765498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodwolf_badmoon/pseuds/goodwolf_badmoon
Summary: In the middle of the night, Anders reflects on his relationship with Damien Hawke, and regrets what must be done.





	Prelude & Possibility

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've finished in literally years (thanks, mental illness!) so there's that. My apologies for any and all grammatical errors and over-zealous punctuation.

Anders doesn't sleep a lot anymore. In the cold hours when the night is at its darkest and even Kirkwall is quiet, he paces the study in the Hawke mansion, occasionally scribbling notes but mostly staring blankly into the dying embers of the fire.  
His manifesto has become a long rambling thing- reflective, he supposes, of the mess in his head. His ideas are tangled together, bigger and louder than words on a page could ever possibly contain.  
He wonders how much of it would make sense to anyone but himself.  


He wonders when it turned into what it became, because he's fairly sure it started out coherent. Relatively so, anyway. He's always been clever with words, able to express how he felt without too much trouble- providing he wanted to, of course. He can weave together a convincing argument from strands of not much really. Not usually enough to convince himself, but unwitting others, certainly.  
Although he doesn’t need convincing any more. Not about this.  
  
He is filled with a strange manic energy that whispers and rustles within him, burning blue and white and robbing him of the last dregs of the peace the night once brought.  
It’s been this way for months now. The better part of a year.  
Justice is restless. But Justice is also inextricably Anders.  
Justice's rage is Anders' rage.   
Anders is restless.  
  
He couldn't sleep, even if he wanted to. The fire in his blood, the noise in his head won't let him rest in any meaningful way- forcing itself between himself and Damien, and crackling in the spaces between them the way something else used to. It was something beautiful, Anders recalls, but he doesn’t know when it was replaced with whatever this is.  
  
Everything is building to a crescendo, he feels. Time is short, why waste it sleeping?   
He sees the sense in this, although a part of him desperately wants to throw it all away, crawl into bed with Damien, pull the covers over them both for a week.  
He knows a way out is no longer possible.  
Too much is already in motion.  
Too many people’s lives hang in the balance.  
He has to do something.  
He has to.  
  
Rusty, Damien's big goofy Mabari, long since reclaimed his spot on the bed. It's a large bed, but he’s a large dog. Sprawled out beside his master, kicking and growling at the nugs in his dreams, he makes himself right at home.  
There isn't room in the bed for him now.  
  
Anders knows that Damien would make room for him- Damien always makes room for him.  
They have been together for years now- things should be familiar, comfortable. But Anders never quite learned to trust himself, never totally let his guard down to be loved the way Damien wants to love him- completely, endlessly.  
It feels like a betrayal, even if Damien doesn’t seem to notice.  
He must have noticed. He’s a smart man.  
Anders wonders again, for the hundredth time, what he’s doing here in this man’s home. This man’s life.  
  
Hawke talks of them growing old together, retiring to the countryside, the coast, Antiva- leaving behind the pain and the danger that has become everyday for them here. Sometimes, in the small hours before dawn, Anders lets himself wonder what such a life would be like. Not to the extent of picking out soft furnishings, but he thinks of abstract concepts like warmth and safety. Sunlight and slow mornings and easy nights free from blood and fear and persecution.  
In those moments, like he does now, he shakes his head and rubs his eyes, pushing the thoughts away- he can't let himself soften, can't let himself dream like that.  
  
He, Anders, is meant for something cold and dark and violent- he knows this now- and hates himself for the weakness that let him say yes when Hawke first persued him. Curses himself for letting him in, letting him see so much of what Anders keeps hidden for what he thinks are very good reasons.  
He wishes he never allowed himself to admit the ache he felt in hours like these, for the man that would become the Champion of Kirkwall.  
  
Damien. Sweet, brash, rogue that he is. Already caught up in so much- plots bigger than anything he could have dreamed. Other people's schemes and the very history of Kirkwall itself.   
He doesn’t understand, Anders thinks. He has no idea how long his name with echo through the ages. Anders suspects his own name may yet make history, but not for the same heroic reasons.  
A pang of guilt, not the first and not the last, flashes within Anders. He is as guilty of tainting Hawke's life as much as Meredith, and the bloody rest of them.   
  
Anders, the part of him that misses bed and Damien's touch and the closest he’s had to normality, wants more than anything to return to how things were. Before- even if he isn't completely sure he remembers what it was like.  
It's the part of him that is still truly Anders, he thinks, untainted by hatred and anger and the thing that Justice had become. The part of him that had endured the Circle and the Deep Roads and the lonely years between, the part of him that he can feel flickering and dying more with each passing day.  
The part of him that hopes, and can't stop hoping, that there's a way they could still make it out alive.  
He can’t expect that Hawke will still love him after what is to come.  
He can’t delude himself into thinking that anyone could possibly love him once he’s done what must be done, but he can hope that they’re both still breathing at the end of it all.  
Even if it seems foolish to do so.  
  
Somewhere in the mansion, a clock softly chimes the hour and Anders snaps back to reality with a suddenness that makes his head spin.  
The room is cold. The fire has been out for some time, and behind the heavy curtains, dawn is beginning to break.  
  
Kirkwall is waking up.  
  
Anders sighs heavily and goes about his day, aware that the day he must bring all of this crashing down around him is drawing near.


End file.
